Eleanor Clift

A friendly looking bear of a man, Dennis Hastert provided a much needed image makeover for the Republicans when he took over as House speaker in January 1999.

Suddenly Bill Clinton is everywhere, solving poverty, tackling AIDS, hosting Laura Bush, crafting the Democrats' message and deflecting questions about his wife's likely run for president.

In this season of war and politics, members of Congress are in the dock, none more so than Connecticut Republican Chris Shays. An ardent supporter of the war, Shays abruptly reversed course to join critics in calling for a firm deadline-based timetable "to wake up the Iraqis" so U.S. troops could begin to withdraw from Iraq.

Let the talking heads and the lawyers debate the new U.S. Army field-manual rules about interrogation. Democrats should play rope-a-dope, absorb the blows and put the spotlight on President Bush's empty rhetoric about winning the war against terrorism.  Five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and Americans don't think the Iraq war is making them safer.What Bush did in his speeches this week is the national-security version of the perp walk.

Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays has long been an ardent backer of the war in Iraq. But after returning last week from his 14th trip to the country, the congressman reported that little progress had been made--and called for a "fixed timeline" for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

President Bush is boasting about all the books he read this summer, including a tome by the French existentialist, Albert Camus, "and three Shakespeares," he told NBC's Brian Williams.

If you think things are bad now, they will be worse if we leave. That's the essence of President Bush's argument for staying the course in Iraq. Bush is doing what he always does—shamelessly ramping up the fear factor.

It will soon be five years since the 9/11 attacks thrust America into a state of perpetual anxiety, and the man who inspired and masterminded the carnage that awful day remains at large.

It was vintage Rumsfeld. Responding to Hillary Clinton's assertion that his optimistic assurances about Iraq have gone unfulfilled, the Defense secretary insisted that his view of the war has never been overly rosy. "I understand this is tough stuff," he said, challenging the New York senator to find something he said that would back up her accusation.The testy exchange took place in Washington on Thursday as the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled Rumsfeld along with Gen.

There's no daylight between President Bush and what any Democrat is saying about the Middle East conflict. Polls show that Americans sympathize with Israel but don't want us to get drawn into the fighting.

We were at the Lebanese border last week taking turns peering through binoculars at a Hizbullah outpost while getting briefed by an Israeli commander. The desert landscape looked deceptively calm and we could see a U.N.

We arrived at the prime minister's office an hour after the Hamas groups holding a captured Israeli soldier issued an ultimatum demanding the release of Arab prisoners in exchange for his freedom.

You have to go back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s to find Congress so outrageously trying to stifle dissent. Signed by President John Adams to quash newspapers aligned with rival Thomas Jefferson, some 25 people were arrested and 10 editors and publishers convicted under these laws.

Our towel-snapping president is feeling better. He joked and jostled with the press for almost an hour, high on adrenalin after his secret trip to Baghdad.

The death of the top-ranking operative of Al Qaeda in Iraq is a welcome moment of clarity in a war desperately in search of a rationale. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi personified the face of evil and was controversial even among jihadists for staging large-scale attacks on civilians.

President Bush's call for a "rational middle ground" on immigration injects a welcome note of sanity into the debate. But that's not what Bush's conservative base is looking for.

On Wednesday I sat in a darkened room at the Kennedy Library in Boston watching photos from Iraq projected on a wall screen as an Associated Press photographer talked about covering the anguish of war.

Al Gore has launched his new campaign—this one to battle the effects of global warming. At its center is a new film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which stars Gore and has been winning surprisingly positive press.

A movie about Al Gore giving a PowerPoint presentation about global warming doesn't sound all that exciting, but if you liked "March of the Penguins," you'll love "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore is as relentless in his travels to save the planet and faces almost as many obstacles as those penguins making their way across the tundra.Getting the country to face up to global warming is his life's mission, and it could be his ticket to the presidency.

The White House makeover team got the headline they wanted: that Karl Rove was demoted and taken out of the policy loop. Rove could lose his ground-floor West Wing office and have to settle for less prestigious quarters on the second floor.

Republicans have raised millions by demonizing Ted Kennedy, and that will continue. But even Kennedy's harshest critics have come to realize the man is a superb legislator, and if Republicans want to accomplish anything in any area of health, education and social welfare, they've got to contend with Kennedy.We talk about his brothers and lionize their brief time of public service, but the senior senator from Massachusetts has the most lasting legislative achievements.

President Bush promised to restore honor and dignity to the White House. It was a not-so-veiled reference to the indiscretions of his predecessor. Bush relied on the trust that stemmed from his supposedly higher character to take the nation to war, a war we have since learned was waged on mostly made-up intelligence.Lewis (Scooter) Libby's claim that it was the president who authorized the leaking of classified information for political gain may not mean that Bush did anything illegal, but it...

Democrats released their national-security plan this week. Like the proverbial talking dog, it's not so much what it says, but that it says anything at all.

President Bush was trying to show resolve, but instead it looked like he was trying to pass the buck when he said the decision on when to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq would be made by a future U.S. president and Iraqi government.Handing off responsibility is a hallmark of Bush's leadership.

Newsweek Eleanor CliftDemocrats' DilemmaClift: Dem Feingold Tosses GOP a Life RaftThe Dems must satisfy their base without alienating the rest of the country.

Americans aren't taking to the streets to protest the way they did during the Vietnam era, but that doesn't mean they have any faith in our current leadership.

As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. An election for governor that could turn on a constitutional amendment banning gay adoption is shaping up as a replay of the 2004 presidential election, when evangelical Christians drawn to the polls by a gay-marriage ban accounted for 25 percent of the Buckeye vote.John Kerry lost the presidency in Ohio, a state with huge job losses that should have been his to win.

He must have thought last week was bad fending off Dick Cheney's quailgate. Who would have thought that this week Mr. War President would be preoccupied putting out a firestorm in the base of his party on national security.

Dennis Haysbert is in Washington filming "Breach," the story of Robert Hanssen, the FBI mole currently serving a life term in federal prison. Best known as the first black president for his role in the Fox series, "24," Haysbert talked about his projects at a recent Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner and took questions from area college students about how to advance positive images of minorities in Hollywood today.How can we support minority filmakers?Hold contests -- give kids a...

The intersection between religion, science and public policy is a treacherous place for politicians. Those who alter their views in response to changing public mores will either reap the reward or pay the price.